MoD Jan|Feb ’16

At long last, the fancy and intensely embiggened new Turnip Truck market opened its doors at 701 Woodland in late November, with Mayor Megan Barry joining the opening celebration as a ceremonial first customer.

The original location, at 970 Woodland, stayed open until a few days before the new space welcomed shoppers in, so the neighborhood was able to keep on Truckin’ with very little interruption.

The fine points of the new Turnip Truck for those who haven’t been by yet: It’s about four times the size of the former space, with 13,000 square feet of shopping space, and although all the bells and whistles weren’t up and running at the jump, they’ve been adding quickly — at press time, the new meat department, juice bar, and cold salad bar were up and going, and the hot bar was on its way.

Smith & Lentz Brewing — one of three fresh craft brewery faces in/coming to the neighborhood — opened its taproom at 903 Main in late October, sharing lots of different on-tap S&L brews in pints and growlers. To start with, offerings included two different IPAs, a session ale, oatmeal stout, and a Bavarian Hefeweizen, among others.

East Nashville wasn’t originally where Smith & Lentz was planning to end up — cocaptains Kurt Smith and Adler Lentz initially had a space downtown in the works. But when a fire waylaid those plans, they looked our way, and found the perfect place in the former Worms’ Way building.

“A learning experience at our first location is that the sense of a community was nonexistent, except for a couple breweries nearby, which were extremely supportive and helpful,” Smith told us. “I live in East Nashville, and Adler ends up spending a lot of time in the neighborhood, so it was a target area of ours when we got another chance for real estate. We hope our taproom becomes a meeting place for our neighbors and is something they become proud of.”

“This East Nashville establishment mixes in a touch of elegance in an approachable setting. A great place to grab a happy hour cocktail, a glass of wine, or spend the evening catching up with friends. Nosh on small plates, charcuterie boards, and classic cheeses, sip your way through the cocktail list, or explore the memorable wine menu. If you’ve been missing something in your regular evening agenda, there’s a good chance you’ll find it at Bar Luca.”

Hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 4 p.m. to midnight. More info at lucanashville.com.

Porter East welcomed a new face recently: Apple & Oak is now in business at 717 Porter Road, selling all kinds of home decor, from rugs and furniture to ornamental incidentals.

The Urban Juicer’s East Nashville location also opened in November at 1009 Gallatin Ave., slinging additive-free, fresh fruit and vegetable juice. The East Side location joins other Urban Juicer spots in town, including ones on Eighth Avenue and in Green Hills.

Skater kids in East Nashville got a new home base in October, as Hunt Supply Co. opened at 118 S. 11th St., Unit D, selling boards, apparel, accessories, and more.

Owner Jason Hunt isn’t an East Sider (he’s based in Ashland City), but he saw our side of the river as a perfect spot for a skater-owned and -operated shop. “I love the area,” he told us. “It’s a good spot for a skate shop to be in — there are lots of restaurants and shops, and those are intertwined with the skateboard community pretty well.”

East Nashville’s latest entry into the world of high fashion got a fittingly high-fashion-y introduction: The new Two Son shop opened in December at 918 Main St. (otherwise known as the squat black building that’s changed faces more than a few times in recent years), and it came to more than a few Nashvillians’ attention via a pretty impressive piece in Vogue magazine.

The shop sells a mix of high-end men’s and women’s fashions and home goods, and the owners — couples/friends-in-charge David Perry and Leigh Watson and Aubrey McCoy and James Kicinski-McCoy — also have plans to launch a clothing line.

So why the quick interest from fancy pages? Might have something to do with the pedigree of two of the owners: James Kicinski-McCoy is the woman behind the massively popular blog Bleubird (bleubirdblog.com), and Watson is half of sister duo The Watson Twins (and one of the owners of Nashville events space The Cordelle). Lends a little cachet and inspired a fantastic, clickbaity headline: “This New Shop Is Giving NYC Retail a Run for Its Money — Though You Won’t Guess Where It’s Located.”

In late October, the neighborhood gained a new health care provider, as Neighborhood Health at Inglewood opened at 3904 Gallatin Pike.

The new location is one of several in Nashville (including ones in Madison and downtown) bringing affordable health options — from prescriptions to lab tests counseling — for patients of all ages.

In a release, CEO Mary Bufwack noted that insured patients and uninsured patients were welcome — “those without (insurance) will be provided care at a discount,” she said.

The Inglewood space is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and walk-in visits are welcome. For more information, visit neighborhoodhealthtn.org.

East Nashville also got a new meat-and-three recently, as Homa’s Southern Cuisine opened in October at 1201 Dickerson Pike in 37207, serving pulled pork, mac and cheese, and other staples. The restaurant’s name came from the lady who also cooked up a bunch of its recipes: owner Dwanna Murphy’s grandmother Lahoma, a.k.a. Homa.

Local vintage shoppers said goodbye to a fun neighborhood shop in November, as Lost Century, at 1011 Gallatin Ave., closed its doors.

Owner Rob Wey opened the shop in 2014, stocking preloved stuff from housewares to furniture. The closure, he tells us, was more a consolidation. “I decided it made more sense to combine (Lost Century Vintage) with my store Smack Clothing Co., celebrating 20 years on Elliston Place,” he said. “One store, one rent.”

We likely haven’t seen the last of Wey on the East Side, though. “I was born and raised in East Nashville,” he said, “and I’ll be back.”

First, the bummer news: Cole Family Practice, whose Riverside Village location has been offering family health care services to the neighborhood since 2013, set a Christmastime closing date for that space. This one’s another consolidation, though; the East Side and Old Hickory Cole locations have combined into a larger space in Hermitage.

And that leads to the good news: The opening up of that space at 1406 McGavock made room for East Nashville Health and Wellness, an affiliate to Third & Church Healthcare downtown. ENHW’s Jason Boylan told us they were shooting to move in at the start of the year, and to begin offering primary care and walk-in services shortly thereafter.

As an East Sider, Boylan’s excitement about the new venture is both professional and personally spurred. “It feels very natural and exciting to work with neighbors to improve their health and assist them with achieving a greater state of wellness,” he told us.

Eclectic East Nashville shop Artisan East. Goods & Good Finds, which opened in the summer of 2014 at 1601-B Riverside Dr., closed its doors in November.

“For more reasons than I can list, the time has come,” owner Brandy Davenport wrote about the decision to close her brick-and-mortar shop.

She hasn’t gone away altogether, though — Artisan East fans can still shop for crafty home goods and local art at artisaneastnashville.com.

As Christmas rolled in, a longstanding fixture in Inglewood’s Riverside Village was prepping to close its doors: M&M Furniture — the quirky antique/buy-and-sell furniture shop on the corner of Riverside and McGavock — planned to shutter by the top of 2016.

Owner Roger Myers moved into the cozy shop at 1310 McGavock nearly 20 years ago, after stumbling on the then-for rent building during a drive around the neighborhood. He put a bunch of work into fixing it up back then, but the decades had run the building back down, and it felt like time to retire.

“That’s one reason I’m moving out,” Myers told us. “It’s just so old and everything, and they’re fixing everything else up around here.”

As for the building’s future: The owner indicated that he has no immediate plans for the property.

COMING SOON

Lovers of Italian food have reason to rejoice in 2016: brothers and East Nashvillians Ryan and Danny Nicoletto are expanding their handmade pasta company, with plans to open Nicoletto’s Italian Kitchen, a full-service retail and restaurant space, at 2905A Gallatin Pike.

Since mid-2014, the two have been making small-batch homemade pasta in Inglewood and sharing it at farmers markets and local shops around the city. The new space will not only serve as a regular place to sell their packaged pastas — from ravioli to gnocchi to lasagna — but also as a lunch and dinner stop (late-night hours Thursdays through Saturdays are in the works too), with handmade sauces, meatballs, sausages, and more.

Alongside the brothers, Rome-via-Chicago chef Saverio Castellucci will be in the kitchen. At press time, the Nicolettos were shooting to open in January. For more, visit nicolettos.com.

The start of 2016 was also set to bring another new tenant to the continually expanding Fatherland District: Be Well Nashville, “a health and wellness store specializing in high-quality nutritional products, herbal cleanses, protein powders and more,” was due to open in The Shoppes on Fatherland (1006 Fatherland)

In mid-November, The Tennessean reported that plans for a “casual dining restaurant” were being explored by the new owners of 974 and 978 Main, part of the Hunters Custom Automotive campus. (Hunters, meanwhile, isn’t going anywhere — the longtime East Side business remains in business, with no plans to change that.)

Right at press time, Nashville Post also dropped the possibility (which has now been confirmed) of upscale local burger chain Burger Up spreading to our side of the river. The Post says, “Nashville-based restaurant group Community Hospitality recently landed a charter for Burger Up East Nashville LLC.” We reached out to the Burger Uppers for more info, which we’ll share as soon as we hear it (stay tuned to our blog, TheEastNashvillian.com/blog, for regular updates on all things Eastly).

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